David Hill on the kindest lie he\u2019s ever been told.<\/p>\n
Summer read \u2013 originally published August 9 2025.<\/p>\n
Ethicists and philosophers divide over The Good Lie. Some claim that if an untruth prevents greater harm, supports social order and harmony, we\u2019re justified in telling it. Others insist that truthfulness must always take precedence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I agree with the first lot. Why? Meet my cousin Zona.<\/p>\n
My father died half a century ago. It was Zona who told me the news, following it up with the kindest lie I\u2019ve ever known.<\/p>\n
Zona lived in the same town as Dad, 350km away. During his decade of widowerhood, Sunday lunch at her and husband Hughie\u2019s place had become part of his routine.<\/p>\n
Our phone rang mid-afternoon on one of those Sundays. The moment my cousin identified herself, I pretty much knew. People didn\u2019t make toll calls in the mid-1970s unless something major was up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he dead?\u201d I heard myself ask. Across the room, my wife Beth turned to stare. A pause at the other end of the phone. Zona was half a generation older than me; more reserved and discreet; hadn\u2019t wanted to break the news so baldly. After a second, she said \u201cYes. Yes, he is. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father hadn\u2019t turned up to lunch. She rang, but no reply. She and Hughie drove to his place, found his car in the garage, the back door locked, bedroom curtains drawn. They knocked and called out, got the spare key from under its concrete slab, and went in. \u201cHe was still in bed. Just lying there. He looked very peaceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
I drove the 350km down, through the pre-Daylight Saving dusk and summer night. I felt\u2026 relieved. Grateful. My mother had died badly. Ever since, I\u2019d worried about how Dad might go. Now it had happened in the best way possible, sudden and \u201cvery peaceful\u201d.<\/p>\n
I arrived at his house about 3am. The bed had been made. I stood looking at it, said \u201cCheers, Bob Hill,\u201d slept on the living room floor, in the sleeping bag I\u2019d brought along.<\/p>\n
Zona was knocking on the back door when I struggled back into the world the next morning. \u201cSo he looked\u2026 all right?\u201d I asked, as we drank instant coffee at the kitchen table, under the yellow ceiling patch where his roll-your-owns had painted a layer of nicotine. I wanted the reinforcement.<\/p>\n
My cousin nodded, repeated the precious words \u201cvery peaceful\u201d. Then she gave the mischievous grin I\u2019d got to know and like. \u201cExcept he had his false teeth out.\u201d<\/p>\n
I guffawed. Everything was OK. It had been a wonderful death, instant and dignified. Well, as dignified as he could be without his dentures \u2013 and he\u2019d have enjoyed that detail.<\/p>\n
Things stayed just as OK over the next days. Beth and two-year-old Pete flew down, our son laughing with excitement as he told me all about the plane. The funeral was well attended: neighbours, rellies, workmates from the woolstore where my father had kept working part-time.<\/p>\n
The logistics all lined up. I was the only child, and the will was straightforward. An excellent neighbour would like to buy the house for her son. The few things we wanted to keep fitted neatly into the car.<\/p>\n
Zona insisted we had dinner at their place every night. We four adults talked easily while Pete played or fell asleep on the couch. At least once each evening, we agreed it had been a great way for my father to go. Peaceful, we said again. Dignified.<\/p>\n
Image: Willem Bastiaan Tholen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
We called in to say goodbye as we began the long drive home. While Beth and Zona talked, I thanked Hughie once more. He was 15 or so years older than me, also, closer to Dad\u2019s age.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust glad I was there when we found him,\u201d Hughie said, almost absently. \u201cDon\u2019t think Zona could have managed by herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him. \u2018\u201dWhat d\u2019you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughie was gazing at the concrete. He hadn\u2019t meant to come out with those words. \u201cWhat \u2013\u201d I began again. He jerked his head at me; led me off towards his vege garden, away from the two women and Pete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I demanded this time. Hughie was no good at dissembling. \u201cLook\u2026 Zona didn\u2019t want to upset you; said there was no point to it. But \u2013 your Dad was half on the floor, like he\u2019d started to get up, couldn\u2019t make it. And\u2026 I think he\u2019d needed the lavatory. We had to clean him up a bit before we called the undertaker. Found a clean pair of pyjamas; put those on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shook his head. \u201cLike I say, Zona reckoned there was no need to tell you all this. And whatever happened, it was quick. No doubt about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Zona hadn\u2019t told me the truth, I thought, as we drove away. My father hadn\u2019t died peacefully. There\u2019d been discomfort, maybe distress. How long had it lasted? I\u2019d never know. But I did know that my cousin had told me a lie.<\/p>\n
As I say, philosophers differ over whether an untruth can ever be condoned. But AC Grayling puts it consummately: \u201dIn the tumult and confusion of practical life, the truth is often damaging and painful\u2026 The concept of weighting enters. Yes, truth-telling is a very high good. So is kindness. It is sometimes unkind to tell a person the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
We all know this; it\u2019s a deceit that helps makes us human. Grayling quotes a precept from the Church of Scotland: \u201cIt is a sin to tell an untimely truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Zona had told me the facts of what happened to my father in his last moments, would that have been an untimely truth? Of course. A death should be allowed as much peace and dignity as possible. Plus, facts are not the same as truth; the latter is a far broader concept, encompassing beliefs, emotions, individual circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(A digression here to mention those bores who proclaim \u201cI tell it like it is\u201d. No you don\u2019t, mate \u2013 because it\u2019s nearly always a male who honks such stuff. You tell it as you think it is, so your version is nearly always incomplete and imperfect. Not to mention arrogant and tedious.)<\/p>\n
My reaction to Hughie\u2019s unintentional disclosure wasn\u2019t what I expected. As we started those 350km back towards home, I felt an ache of love and empathy welling through me, for my father, but also for my cousin. She\u2019d made such a moral, compassionate choice; in Grayling\u2019s terms, she\u2019d \u201cweighted\u201d the facts against the unproductive, the pointless damage and pain they would have caused if she\u2019d disclosed the reality of his end.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I kept Hughie\u2019s words to myself for years. When I heard Beth tell friends that my father\u2019s death had been \u201cthe best possible way to go\u201d, I said nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because on a lesser level, I\u2019d made my own weighting decision. What benefit, what good in the moral sense would there be in my telling anyone? I didn\u2019t say anything to Zona; my question about benefit applies there, too. It was only when my cousin died, a few years back, that I shared the facts of Dad\u2019s death with Beth. By then they were subsumed in the greater, grateful picture we\u2019d built of his life and the parts he\u2019d played in ours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I still unreservedly approve of Zona\u2019s deception: her flawless choice, the kindness and love that motivated her. It was an act of unqualified virtue \u2013 and that\u2019s no lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Hill on the kindest lie he\u2019s ever been told. Summer read \u2013 originally published August 9 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[492,127036,156,111,139,69,2935,72868,123306],"class_list":["post-208281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-comments-enabled","tag-david-hill","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-society","tag-the-spinoff-essay","tag-tourism-fiji-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}